REPAIRMEN MAY GYP YOU-1951
"For six months," says The Neiv York Herald Tribune, "the two authors of this perturbing little volume made a nationwide investigation of the higher nature, if any, of the American repairman. Buying a used car of distinguished make, they engaged the assistance of a lady who looked more helpless than she was, and traveled 19,000 miles, with 1,700 calls on repair shops." "And no one," adds the Boston Post, "could ever pass this book with indifference Whatever your experience with repairmen may have been, you'll find its counterpart here. You will point it out with great satisfaction, and you'll say: 'There! That's exactly what happened to me once.' And you're lucky if it has happened only once. The Post can't think of any subject for research that touches more people. Buy this book, and you will get your money back, over and over, in amounts saved through your wisdom." "There are some amusing stories in it," says the Baltimore Sun, and the Washington Post thinks that the funniest were "the authors' experiences with the Rube Goldberg testing machines used by some shops to impress customers." "The articles in The Reader's Digest were interesting," remarks the Springfield Republican, "but they left room for doubt. The book, however, with details of the almost laboratory caution used by the authors in making their tests, is alarmingly convincing."
"For six months," says The Neiv York Herald Tribune,
"the two authors of this perturbing little volume made a
nationwide investigation of the higher nature, if any, of the
American repairman. Buying a used car of distinguished
make, they engaged the assistance of a lady who looked
more helpless than she was, and traveled 19,000 miles, with
1,700 calls on repair shops."
"And no one," adds the Boston Post, "could ever pass
this book with indifference Whatever your experience with
repairmen may have been, you'll find its counterpart here.
You will point it out with great satisfaction, and you'll say:
'There! That's exactly what happened to me once.' And
you're lucky if it has happened only once. The Post can't
think of any subject for research that touches more people.
Buy this book, and you will get your money back, over and
over, in amounts saved through your wisdom."
"There are some amusing stories in it," says the Baltimore
Sun, and the Washington Post thinks that the funniest were
"the authors' experiences with the Rube Goldberg testing
machines used by some shops to impress customers."
"The articles in The Reader's Digest were interesting,"
remarks the Springfield Republican, "but they left room
for doubt. The book, however, with details of the almost
laboratory caution used by the authors in making their tests,
is alarmingly convincing."
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<strong>REPAIRMEN</strong> WILL GET <strong>YOU</strong><br />
"Yes." "Well, I'll fix your watch for seventy-five<br />
cents." (The day before he had wanted $1.25 for<br />
a new mainspring.) "What's wrong<br />
with it?"<br />
I asked him now. "What did I tell<br />
you yesterday?"<br />
"I forget." "Well," he said, "the same<br />
thing is wrong with it today."<br />
As in the other surveys we made, the big cities<br />
were less honest than the small ones. In the case<br />
of the watch repairmen the percentage of dishonesty<br />
ran at fifty-one in the big cities and<br />
thirty-eight in the towns under 10,000 population.<br />
Watch-repair shops sometimes show certificates<br />
and seals of this or that society. We got the<br />
idea that these tended to be used chiefly as<br />
decorations, not necessarily as reliable guarantees<br />
of good work. One man in North Carolina<br />
told of the Carolina Watchmakers' Guild, saying<br />
its<br />
purpose<br />
is to establish reasonable and uniform<br />
prices. This watchmaker was honest. Another,<br />
in St. Augustine, Florida, displayed a<br />
diploma of the Horological Institute of America<br />
but this repairman charged $1.50 for "adjusting<br />
the crown wheel." Pressed for details as
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